“This one has found a home in Marine Corps.”
“I know how you feel. When I was growing up in the orphanage, all I ever dreamed of was joining the Corps.”
Makki picked up and studied the origami sculpture. “This mewling cannot decide which path to walk. What do you think, Sergeant Akira?”
“You know what I think. But you should always follow your heart.”
Makki set the paper bird back on the table. He stood, folded his paws and bowed to Akira. “This one thanks you for the espresso,” he said.
“The honor was mine, Makki-san.” Akira rose to her feet and bowed in return. “And don’t let that big ape O’Hara get you down.”
“But he is always yelling and biting off this one’s ears!”
“Oh, that’s just his way, Makki. He’s really all bark and no bite. You just have to bark back at him. Maybe bite him once in a while, too. ”
444
The Iwo Jima’s lounge was crowded with Marines and Fleet personnel. Music, laughter, and conversation combined to make a joyous noise. Cigar smoke clouded the air. Every Marine there was dressed in camies, their hands and faces smeared with camouflage paint. They drank, smoked cigars, played cards, shot pool or threw darts. It was Warrior Night, an old tradition, a night when the Corps honored every warrior who had fallen in battle.
Decked out in their camouflaged fatigues and painted faces, Akira, O’Hara and Cortez strolled into the ship’s lounge. They stopped at an unoccupied table laid out with four place settings, a black flag, and a P.O.W. flag. All of the dishes were turned upside down. The three sergeants came to attention and snapped reverential salutes.
“God bless all here!” said O’Hara.
“And those who have gone before,” Cortez added.
Akira bowed. “Semper fi!”
Standing at ease, she and Cortez scoped out the ship’s lounge. O’Hara licked his lips, wiped his mouth and rubbed his hands together. He had a big thirst and was aching for a drink. Since boarding the Iwo Jima that’s all he talked about, much to the chagrin of Akira and Cortez.
A young ensign wearing the white dress uniform of the Terran Empire’s Imperial Fleet approached them. He had sand-colored hair, bright green eyes, and a friendly smile. His manner was smooth, slick and disarming.
“Hello, Charles, my very good friend!” Cortez greeted the ensign. “I was but a moment ago thinking of the black diamonds you were kind enough to tell me of.”
Ensign Charles Stevens smiled. “Wonderful!”
“I shall go in search of these diamonds once we set down on Rhajnara and I am granted leave,” Cortez told him.
“Did you get a chizzersaurus egg?”
“No, unfortunately. They had all hatched before we arrived.”
“Oh, sorry to hear that,” Stevens said. “But hey—there’s always those black diamonds, just lying out there, waiting to be picked up. Right?”
“Indeed so, my friend!” Cortez told him. “Come, have a drink or three with us.”
“I’m sorry, Cortez. I can’t,” Stevens said. “I’m shoving off in an hour.”
“Where to?” Akira asked him.
“The Starhawk,” Stevens replied. “It’s a patrol vessel stationed in the Kamali System. I’ve been promoted to Lieutenant, Junior Grade, and have to report to my new C.O.”
“Well then, congratulations and good luck, my friend,” said Cortez.
“Yes, and happy trails to you,” Akira said.
“Have a safe voyage,” O’Hara grumbled.
Stevens thanked and shook hands with them, and then left.
O’Hara shook his head in disgust. “The bloody Fleet,” he said. “Fancy flyboys cruise the stars and never get their pretty uniforms dirty from crawlin’ around in the mud of some god-forsaken planet!” He glared at Cortez. “Black diamonds, is it? Cortez—you make me sick!”
“O’Hara, you are a man without ambition,” Cortez said. “But unlike you, I do not wish to live on just a sergeant’s pension. When I retire from the Corps, I intend to be a very rich man.”
Akira bowed. “Semper Fi!”
He grinned, lit up a cigar and immediately started coughing.
444
Makki entered the ship’s lounge wearing camies but no war paint. He groomed his chin and whiskers as he scanned the crowded facility. Then he smiled as a pretty Rhajni nurse with a hint of Siamese cat in her features walked up to him.
“May the Eye of Azra watch over you, Sheel Pham,” he greeted her in English.
“May the Light of Luzsara shine upon you, Makki Doon,” said Sheel. She smiled at him, and her tangerine-colored eyes sparkled. “Have you been well?”
“This mewling is very much excellent,” he said.
“Your English is improving, Makki, but you’re too old to be calling yourself a mewling.”
Makki laughed. “This one will strive to learn better.”
“Did you read the book I gave you?” she asked him in Rhajni.
“Oh, yes. But it’s a very difficult textbook to read,” he answered in their native tongue.
“Well, I’m free later tonight. I can help you, if you wish,” Sheel said.
“You’d be willing to help this one study?”
“I’d be happy to. Anatomy is my specialty, you know.”
They walked over to the unoccupied table honoring the fallen warriors. Sheel folded her paws, bowed her head and said a prayer in the Rhajni language to Azra, the Maker of All Things. Makki bowed his head, then stood at attention and snapped a sharp salute.
When they had paid their respects, Sheel looked around and shook her head. “Let’s not stay too long,” she said, switching to English. “I have a tin of ginseng tea from Earth. We can go back to my cabin, and I’ll nuke a pot for us.”
“You wish to be alone with this one?” asked Makki.
“Of course! Don’t you want to be alone with me?”
Makki grinned, exposing sharp incisors. His ears stood erect with excitement.
444
Pretty Boy Steele, Fatty Russo and Tattoo Annie leaned against a plexiwood bar, guzzling beer and doing shooters of Tequila with Corporal Jemma DeVito, a cute redhead with a buzzcut. Akira, O’Hara and Cortez bellied up to the bar. A life-like android bartender wearing a white apron polished the counter with a dirty rag.
“Look what the solar winds blew in,” said Annie.
“Buenas noches, my ladies,” Cortez said, attempting to kiss Annie’s and DeVito’s hands.
“Eat space and die, wormhole!” DeVito joked, snatching her hand away.
“Hey—it’s the three mosquitoes! One for all and all for one!” Fatty said.
“Russo, I don’t know what depresses me more,” O’Hara told him. “Your face or the rotgut they serve in this slopchute.”
“What’s the scuttlebutt, Pretty Boy?” Akira asked.
“You and me, alone on a deserted island,” he told her.
Akira punched him in the chest. “Not in this space-time continuum.”
The bartender approached them. “And would you be naming your poison now?” the android asked with a genuine Irish brogue.
The other Marines laughed. Akira and Cortez gaped at O’Hara, who shrugged innocently. She suspected that O’Hara had probably talked one of the Fleet’s tech-heads into reprograming the mechman’s vocal circuits.
“Three Nebula beers, Señor Isaac,” Cortez said to the robot.
“And I’ll be havin’ the same,” said O’Hara. “With a glass of whiskey for a chaser.”
Chapter Seven
The Black Starship
The Angel of Mercy was a million tons of starship—a tri-level infirmary vessel with two nacelles and four solar panels that looked like butterfly wings. Bound for deep space, she was due to rendezvous with the Tulagi, a battle cruiser that had recently put down a rebellion on one of the Terran Empire’s colony planets at the edge of the Eluvian galactic frontier. The ancient symbol of the Red Cross was emblazoned on the port and star
board sides of the hospital ship. Her mission was to pick up any wounded in need of medical care beyond what the sick bay facilities aboard the Tulagi warship could provide.
As the Angel of Mercy cruised toward the edge of the Shandru Galaxy and neared the Hamilton Wormhole that was the jump-off point into hyperspace, a massive black starship suddenly appeared a scant billion miles away. This vessel resembled an armored dragon that spat death rays from her jaws instead of fire, and launched atomizer torpedoes from the ribs of her two enormous wings. There were no markings of any kind on her sleek black hull.
The black starship slowed from FTL drive and turned her nose slowly to starboard, heading straight toward the Angel of Mercy.
444
So far, Dr. Deanna Chan was enjoying her new assignment aboard the Angel of Mercy. It gave her the chance to do more with her education and skills than patch up and save the lives of wounded warriors. While that was still her number one priority as a physician, she now had the opportunity to do follow-up on her patients, tracking their progress through rehab, physical therapy and psych evaluation. She was even able to spend some of her off-duty hours as a volunteer, working with amputees and transplant recipients, helping them familiarize themselves with their new prosthetic limbs, electronic eyes, and other organs.
The sterile, white environment of the Angel’s interior wasn’t as cold and impersonal as Chan had feared it would be. Instead, she found it a warm and comforting atmosphere, filled with the positive energy of nurses, orderlies, technicians, and other doctors. The starship’s plush lounge was even more inviting, providing a safe, quiet and comfortable place for the ship’s officers and medical personnel to relax and unwind, and forget the horrors of war for a while.
Chan sipped from a glass of Canisian Blue, an exotic vintage of wine, and enjoyed a leisurely game of chess with a handsome doctor named David Rypel.
“Check,” he said, placing his queen in position to threaten her king.
She moved her knight, captured his queen, and caught his king off guard. “Check and mate,” she said with a laugh, taking another sip of wine.
“I bet you never saw that one coming, Doctor Dave!” said an orderly named Ted Smith, who was sitting at the table next to them, and had been following their chess game.
“Very funny, Ted,” Rypel said, refilling his and Chan’s wine glasses.
“This is excellent wine, David, and this lounge is so nice. I never imagined that a hospital ship could be so elegant.”
“It’s almost like a luxury starliner, isn’t it?”
“Sure feels like it.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying this, Deanna,” Rypel told her.
The lounge was softly lit by multi-colored lights emanating from overhead. Plush leather booths lined both port and starboard sides, and rectangular viewports looked out upon the glory and vastness of interstellar space. An old-fashioned bar made of genuine oak stood at the rear of the lounge, with an impressive aquarium filled with tropical fish occupying the shelf above the rows of bottles and decanters. Off-duty officers and medical personnel sitting on tall barstools ordered drinks and conversed while classical music played over hidden speakers. A Tri-D entertainment unit filled the forward bulkhead wall.
“So what’s a cute doctor like you doing aboard a space cruiser like this?” Rypel asked.
Chan was about to make some flippant remark when the ship’s alarm suddenly interrupted the music. A nurse shouted and pointed at the starboard viewport. People leapt from their seats and hurried over to watch the black dragon warship close in on the Angel of Mercy.
“What’s going on?” asked Smith.
“I don’t know,” Chan replied.
The voice of the Angel’s captain boomed over the speakers, ordering all officers and their crews to report to their stations.
Rypel smiled, took Chan’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” he said.
They gazed out the viewport and saw the black dragon’s jaws flash with bright green energy beams as it fired upon the hospital ship. The vast darkness of space lit up with silent explosions of red and yellow light as the Angel of Mercy began to disintegrate. Men and women screamed as they were instantly vaporized in three quick blasts from the dragon’s death ray.
Chan screamed in horror when Smith and Rypel disintegrated into a million fiery atoms in front of her eyes. A millisecond later she wailed in agony as the flesh melted from her bones.
Then the hospital ship broke in half, and the last thought she had as her burned and mutilated body went hurtling into space was of her young daughter back on Earth.
444
Numerous light years away, the Courageous, a three million ton starship, emerged into normal space, cruising through the grand starscape of the Shandru Galaxy like a great white shark through the waters of Earth’s oceans. The vessel resembled a pointed ellipsoid—a half circle attached to a triangle. She sported a small tailfin, and a set of wings mounted with heavy artillery. As the ship neared her destination, she powered down her FTL engines and hovered near the rim of the Ambala solar system, about four billion kilometers from Rhajnara.
Seven planets circled the system’s blazing yellow sun; the Rhajni homeworld was the second planet. An H-Class planet with three moons, called the Three Sisters, its only landmass was the supercontinent—Vanalooj. It was tropical world of great rain forests, vast deserts and salt flats, countless lakes and rivers, and a system of canals linking its cities.
A hatch opened in the belly of the Courageous, and the tiny Iwo Jima crawled from the hangar of the massive starship and then set course for Rhajnara. Turning gracefully, the Courageous soared past the planets and left the solar system far behind.
The Iwo Jima moved slowly through the Ambala System. She was designed and built in the likeness of a cruise missile, with two gun-mounted wings foreword, a second pair aft, and a tailfin up top, close to the stern. She veered to port on ancient retro rockets and set a course for the second planet from the sun.
The Devil Dogs of Company E were about to land on Rhajnara.
444
Camp Corregidor was located on the southern coast of Vanalooj, Rhajnara’s vast supercontinent. Massive walls of stone and steel surround-ed fortress-like buildings and utilitarian structures. A robot bugler stood beneath three flags: the Three Moons of the Republic of Rhajnara, the Sun and Starship of the Terran Empire, and the revered Eagle, Globe and Anchor of the Marine Corps.
It was early morning and still quite dark when Akira and Makki, each carrying a bucket of cold water, crept quietly across the parade ground and entered the quarters where Cortez and O’Hara slept. This was a Quonset-like structure with a front porch, a screen door and metal shutters on the windows. The building squatted at the end of a row of barracks.
Inside, the room was filled with two bunks, footlockers, and a weapons rack. Other luxuries such as Personal Communication Units or "PCUs", eReader tablets, small palmtop computers, holozines, and old books lay piled atop a metal and plexiwood desk crammed into a corner. An ancient clock, long broken, hung on one wall. Next to it, an LQD video calendar displayed the month and year, “March 15, 2172,” with an image of Earth and its neighboring planets circling their bright yellow sun.
O’Hara and Cortez were sound asleep in their bunks, snoring up a perfect storm. Akira thought their snoring sounded like a pair of mules trying to sing opera.
She and Makki slipped quietly into the room, carrying their buckets of water.
“Now remember,” Akira whispered, “if it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, pick it up. If you can’t pick it up, paint it.”
“What if it is snoring?” Makki asked.
“Then you wake it up.”
Akira dumped her bucket of ice cold water on O’Hara. Makki followed suit by emptying his bucket on Cortez. The Spaniard jerked into a sitting position, coughing and gagging. O’Hara sat up slowly, yawned, scowled, and spat a mouthful of water.
Cortez glared at Akira an
d Makki. “Have mercy! We are still sleeping!”
“Ah. So sorry,” Akira said. “But you lazy bums don’t want to be late for chow, do you?”
“I’d rather eat meteorites than chew the slop they serve around here,” O’Hara griped.
Akira and Makki laughed and ran from the hut.
444
Cortez was tired, and when he was tired he was cranky. He crawled from his bunk, crept over to his footlocker, opened it, and took out a bugle and his .45 automatic. Walking over to one of the windows, he threw open the metal shutters and knelt below the sill. He carefully aimed his sidearm at the robot bugler.
O’Hara shook his head, crossed himself, got up from his bunk and shuffled over to the window. “And just what the devil do ya think you’ll be doin’ with that gun?” he asked.
“I am going to shoot that bugler before he can wake us up,” Cortez replied.
“We’re already awake, you idiot!” O’Hara ripped the automatic from Cortez’s hand.
“Do you have the wild hair up your trasero this morning, O’Hara?”
“Well what do ya want to be shootin’ that nice old bugler for?”
“Nice? I can blow a bugle better than that tin soldier.”
O’Hara frowned. “Don’t make me laugh. I heard you blow a bugle and I heard you blow your nose. Ain’t much difference, if you was to ask me.”
“Who is asking?” said Cortez. “I just want to have some fun, you critic of music!”
“Fun, is it? Listen, spacehead. Old Saigon Jack out there—”
“Saigon Jack? You have given that heap of scrap metal a name?”
A puzzled look crossed O’Hara’s face. “What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong? I will tell you what is wrong.” Cortez wagged a finger in O’Hara’s face. “That thing is just a robot, you Irish pendejo!”
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